


i do my own stunts and my own saving

by ifimightchime



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Djinni & Genies, F/M, Loss of Powers, Mild Angst with a happy ending, Treat, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-17 23:24:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13669467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifimightchime/pseuds/ifimightchime
Summary: Natasha chose Clint; now she's dealing with the aftermath.





	i do my own stunts and my own saving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CloudAtlas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/gifts).



“Are we talking about this now?”

Natasha stops at the question, one leg through Clint’s window and one still on the ledge. “I thought you’d still be in the hospital.”

He rolls over on the bed to face her, and she can see the thick bandaging around his neck, his wrists. It makes her decision for her, and she slips the rest of the way inside, silent by habit, even without her magic to try and cloak her approach. “Got tired of the smell. I figure it doesn’t matter if I’m lying in their bed or my bed, as long as I don’t get up, right?”

The silver burns must still be driving him crazy, if he’s willing to stay in bed without her or the nurses forcing him. Natasha perches on the edge of the bed, tense and ready to run despite herself. It’s ridiculous, and she hates feeling like this here, where she’s always been able to let things go, but everything still feels raw, and it’s hard to relax, especially when she knows the question is coming again.

It doesn’t take long, sitting in silence, for him to speak. “So are we talking about it?” he asks again, gentler, and she takes in a deep breath and forces her hands to unclench.

“Nothing to talk about.”

“You let them--”

“I know,” she interrupts, and Clint raises his voice even though it has to hurt, talks right over.

“You could have tri--”

“I _know_ ,” she says again, sharper, and puts her hand on his arm. That, more than her words, seems to stop him.

“Why?” he asks instead, quietly, and she doesn’t have an answer he’ll accept.

The truth is, she wasn’t thinking much of anything; her brain stopped, her _heart_ stopped, when she walked into the trap, so sure of her ability to get him out, and realized they didn’t just have Clint, they had her _cage_ , the small ornate bottle she’d been trapped in so long ago. Natasha had been freed decades ago, there was nothing they could make her do with it, but what they could do _to_ her, if they knew how? The list was almost endless.

They weren’t that smart, but they didn’t have to be; her bottle held suspended in somebody’s magic, ready to be crushed, and Clint’s neck in a silver collar, burning the skin, somebody ready to snap his neck, and she’s been around long enough to know the drill. “Your pet or your magic, Miss Romanoff?” he’d said, and she’d been breaking the collar off of Clint’s neck before the question was finished.

She’d screamed, when they crushed her bottle into dust, feeling the magic yanked out of her like somebody’s taken hold of her spine and pulled it from her body; she’d screamed, and then she’d started snapping necks.

At least they hadn’t realized her strength wasn’t part of her magic.

“They would’ve had you dead before I could get to you,” she admits, quiet, and Clint looks away.

“I know,” he says. “You still should have saved your magic.”

“I can survive without my magic.” I can’t survive without you, she doesn’t say, because she’s never been good about saying stuff like that; but she rests her hand on his arm, above the bandage, and squeezes lightly, and hopes he understands it anyway. “It’s a full moon tonight. Are you going to be able to change?”

He starts to shake his head and winces as the bandage must rub against the marks. “Too much exposure, too much damage. It’s going to be a couple of weeks.” He hesitates, looking back at her. “Stay with me instead?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She sits there still for a moment, not sure if her touch would be welcome, before deciding that she’s being ridiculous; Clint has hardly ever turned her away, and he wouldn’t have asked her to stay if he didn’t want her there.

She moves, carefully, telegraphing her motions so he doesn’t move the wrong way and bump into her with his wrists; she wriggles down until she can lie down on the bed next to him, her back pressed to his chest, her head on his arm. She can feel him relax against her, dipping his head to press a kiss against the back of her shoulder; she takes his hand gently, careful where she rests her fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he says, so quietly she can barely hear it, and she leans forward just enough to press a kiss to the inside of his arm.

“I’m not,” she says, simply, and he lets her change the subject.

* * *

It takes a long time to adjust to losing something that defines you. Natasha was a genie for so long that she forgets she was a girl with no magic to speak of before she was cursed. She could try and find somebody to curse her again, but people with real knowledge of her kind are so few and far between, she’d probably reach the end of her extraordinarily long life before she made it -- and even then, she’d have to find a way to trick someone into freeing her all over again.

It’s been almost a year, but she’s still trying to learn how to be without it when there’s another problem, another enemy finds them. Maybe that’s why she falters, why she’s caught out by the energy blast when it comes; because some part of her is still instinctively waiting for her own magic to save her. She whites out for a moment, but she can hear the snarling and tearing that must be Clint ripping through the mages. She listens for the sound of him shifting back, and he’s already crouched over her when his vision clears, examining the damage.

She doesn’t have much time, and he looks desperate. Wolves can’t heal, wolves can’t enchant; wolves only have one piece of magic they can call their own, and Natasha realizes she has two options and minutes to make them. She can let this happen, or she can let him change her.

She watches the realization come over him, too, and he looks at her, scared and serious, tripping over his attempt to offer in his panic. “I can,” he gets out, and she grabs his hand.

“Do it,” she says, and he watches her for a moment, searching any hesitation and not finding any, before changing.

His teeth close around her arm, almost gentle for a second before they bite down, and she can feel his magic running through her, changing her, and the beast following. The change starts in her hands, her feet. It doesn’t hurt, exactly, but it’s strange; and then, right as she starts to lose the words to understand it, she can feel something else, too, something far more familiar than the shift coming over her.

She has just long enough to decide she’s imagining it before she can’t think about it anymore.

* * *

She doesn’t get a chance to test it for a while; it takes some time to get back to her own two feet, and she’s asleep almost as soon as she does. When she wakes up, it’s in her own bed, and she’s grateful. Smells are sharper than she’d ever thought they could be, and even here, where it mostly just smells like her, it’s hard to adjust to it.

She can hear Clint in the kitchen, singing to himself as he cooks, and she sits up, focusing.

Her magic is back.

She doesn’t know how, she doesn’t know why, but she can feel it, as certainly as she can feel the switch that would let her change back to a wolf if she wanted to. Natasha knows herself inside and out, prides herself on her control, and that empty place she’s been aware of for the last year is filled again. She stretches her fingers, folds her legs under her, and concentrates; the blanket slips off her lap as she rises, hovering a half a foot above her bed, and she nearly drops back with the shock of it.

“Nat?” She hears Clint moving through the hall; with a grin, she drifts higher, enjoying his surprise when he opens the door to see an empty bed. It takes him a moment to look up, spot her near the ceiling.

“Morning,” she says, amusement bubbling up in her tone, and he stares at her as she starts moving down again.

“How the hell?”

“I don’t know,” she admits, and a laugh comes spilling out, half hysterical and half grateful, a little bit scared, waiting for it to be taken away again. Clint sits next to her and lets her lean against his side as she settles back on the bed, taking a deep breath and trying to settle her emotions.

“If I knew it’d turn you into a were-genie, I’d have bitten you months ago,” he says after a minute, and she snorts.

“If _I_ knew, I’d have told you to.” She pauses, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’ll talk to some people, see if I can figure it out, but -- it’s back. It’s really back, and I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I’d know,” she says, as certain as she can be, and he accepts it, lacing his fingers with hers.

“Okay.”

They sit in silence for a while, and Natasha’s grateful for the chance to breathe. She closes her eyes, feeling the magic flow through her, the familiar rush and the weird rough edge of the wolf’s awareness of the world waiting to rise to the surface the next time she wants to change. It’s not quite the same, but it’s so much closer than she thought she’d ever have again.

She straightens up, eventually, one last deep breath and opens her eyes. She turns to face Clint, meeting his calm expression with a small smile.

“And if you ever call me a were-genie again, I’ll bite _you_ ,” she says, letting him know he can stop worrying, and he breaks into a grin and meets her kiss halfway.


End file.
